NeoCloud & Colo Due Diligence Lead

Job description

About the Team OpenAI is evaluating multiple infrastructure pathways, including powered land, colo/BTS, and NeoCloud opportunities. The Site Readiness & Development team provides the diligence layer needed to compare opportunities, identify risk, and support credible deployment decisions across those pathways. About the Role The NeoCloud & Colo Due Diligence Lead will evaluate third-party infrastructure opportunities where OpenAI is considering deployment through NeoCloud, colo, or BTS structures. This role will focus on facility and deployment readiness, including MEP readiness, rack strategy, developer capability, facility design, power deliverability, schedule credibility, and operating assumptions. Unlike the land diligence team, this role is centered on technical and operational readiness of third-party infrastructure rather than greenfield site master planning, civil development, and entitlement strategy. This is an individual contributor lead role and does not have direct reports initially. The role determines whether each opportunity is fit-for-use and fit-for-service against OpenAI facility, rack, power, network, reliability, and operational standards; identifies material deficiencies and tracks remediation with developers/operators; and evaluates commissioning, validation, AHJ/code, and deployment interfaces such as structured cabling, network readiness, and high-density rack support where relevant. Key Responsibilities - Lead diligence on NeoCloud, colo, and BTS opportunities across technical and operational readiness dimensions. - Assess each opportunity against OpenAI facility, rack, power, network, reliability, and operational standards to determine deployment fit. - Validate MEP readiness, rack deployment strategy, facility design assumptions, power deliverability, and schedule credibility. - Identify material deficiencies and work with developers/operators to define remediation plans, owners, timing, and residual risk. - Review reliability, availability, maintainability, commissioning/validation readiness, and AHJ/code compliance where relevant. - Evaluate structured cabling, network deployment, high-density rack support, and other technical interfaces required for OpenAI deployment where in scope. - Assess developer/operator capability, execution maturity, and operational risk. - Produce diligence findings, gap analyses, and go / no-go recommendations for the relevant commercial and deployment owners. - Coordinate cross-functional diligence with engineering, operations, procurement, legal, finance, and other stakeholders as needed. - Build repeatable evaluation frameworks for third-party infrastructure opportunities. Qualifications - 8+ years in data center development, mission-critical facilities, MEP engineering, colocation operations, commissioning, or similar roles. - Strong understanding of data center mechanical, electrical, network, and deployment-readiness requirements. - Experience evaluating third-party developers, operators, or colocation providers. - Ability to translate technical findings into commercial, schedule, and execution risk. - Strong cross-functional communication and executive-summary skills. About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf. Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241. OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.